Friday, 11 May 2012

Lipped Or Not: Jennifer Lopez, "Dance Again" on American Idol

Jennifer Lopez doesn't look like she's slowing down any time soon and is still serving "fierce", over ten years in the game. Taking the cheese board that is new single Dance Again [ review] to the stage on American Idol, the New York native put her money where her mouth is and pulled out an energetic performance for the crowd and judging panel she usually sits with.

Though this was definitely a different vocal from the CD version, was it actually live on the night? The intro and the first verse sure did sound live, but as for the rest I have doubts. Mainly because the dynamic (volume) of the vocal stayed pretty consistent throughout the entire performance, despite the rigorous routine.

Take a look at 4.11 and notice how Jennifer Lopez performs a jutting movement, where she violently contracts her abdominal muscles. Here there should have been an extra push of air generated, but nothing is heard on the microphone. Odd?

Live or not, it doesn't really matter, as not being known as a "vocalist" , Jennifer Lopez brought what she needed to the stage, and that was putting on a great performance.

If she was indeed singing live then I tip my hat to her, because doing so and dancing is only ever made to look this easy by one Mrs Carter-Knowles.

Watching this, though, I actually felt a bit sorry for Jennifer - on this show, youth really is a major 'good' to be had. Some of the dance moves came off as a little clunky. And then, the song lyrics and beat generated by some anonymous hitmaker - there's just nothing fresh about this. As unsure as the AI contestants are, I'd much rather watch them and their painful earnestness over Jlo trying so hard to remain hip and current.

Excellent performance, yes the majority of vocals were lip synched but as it says above JLo is not known for her vocal prowess. She looks amazing and puts in some serious effort with her performance, second only to Beyonce. This is why I will never agree with the excuses of Britneys lacklustre performances ' oh she had 2 kids' , is older now. hurt her knee, JLo is older, also has 2 kids and has sustained foot injuries in the past.

The only one who can actually sing live and dance, both things amazingly is Beyoncé. She never lipsyncs even if she doesn't sing some choruses, she never move her lips pretending that she's singing. I think that's honest and JLo should do the same. Move your lips only when you're singing and let your background singers or backing track cover the rest of the song.

I hate to break this to you but Beyonce has lipped for a long time now, she typically uses pre-recorded tracks but she still lip-syncs here a good bit here and there. She's still great but she has lipped throughout her career although she sings mostly live.

That's just a lie. Don't go telling lies without proofs. If you hate Beyoncé because she's almost too good to be true, that's an issue you should treat with your terapist, hehe. The only song she may have lipped a couple of times is Naughty Girl, but just the first part. I have never heard other song lipped and I've seen countless live performances. STOP WITH THE LIES!

Okay come on, even I don't have to guess that this performance is lip synced. I love Jennifer and think she has a really nice and sensual tone to her voice but I don't think her vocals would come across really good if she were dancing and singing at the same time w/o sounding like an absolute mess.

That is why so many other singers and performers praise Beyonce because they know she is really for the most part singing live and dancing at the same time. Check her performances and you will hear the breathing and panting in real time she is even sometimes a bit off key than the record she is performing but she has enough power with her vocal ability to still vocally punch through the song unlike two of my favorites Janet & Madonna who often lip sync for a portion of songs were they concentrate more on the dance.

i am a beyonce stan but diva did a post here that questioned whether she sang live at the 2011 VMAS idk if she lip syncs other than that but some are saying she lipped her performance of sweet dreams at the EMAS - the videos on youtube

beyonce usually sings live really well but to say shes never lipped is not true

Sweet Dreams at the EMAs is clearly live. Her vocals are completely different from the studio version, especially the bridge turned into the Intro. She didn't even sing the word "guide" in the first verse; and when she sang in the next part (the pre-chorus), she sounded a little shaky. Don't forget that she changes the songs live, doing some runs and vocal acrobatics that would be impossible to lipsync because it is impossible to remember all those changes if she pre-records the song. She didn't sing most of the chorus, though; but she's honest about it and doesn't make lip movements or put the mic in her mouth just to lipsync her track.Again, STOP WITH THE LIES, I'm sick of that attitude against an amazing artist that works her ass off to give amazing performances singing live and dancing.With Love On Top I don't even need to proof anything, because is so clear that she's singing live than only a deaf or a brainless monkey would say otherwise (sorry if you did Diva, but if that's the case is an epic mistake of yours). When you say something spontaneous (like the love growing inside of me) and is in the same level of volume (dbs!) than the rest of the whole 100% performance, then you are singing 100%. She sings so differently the last chorus (and again, in the same volume than the rest of the performance) that is completly certain that she sang the whole thing live. I mean, are we questioning the vocals of a woman who has been singing her whole life and with a technique that more than one Diva will kill to achieve? That's madness. YOUR COMMENT IS MADNESS! That's it...

I don't hate her? and no she isn't almost to good to be true. The woman pales in comparison to the generations of singers that have come before her. Would you like a nice detailed list of what she has lipped? I'd be more then happy to point out every single thing that Beyonce has lipped if you'd like :) Although conversing with you would most likely be pointless as it's obvious you have your head so far up Beyonce's ass that you don't know what life is outside of her anus. YOU might truly want to see a therapist for your obsessive behaviors towards her, you act as if you defend her as if she pays your bills. Like I said, I have a list of what she has lipped and if you would like the proof calm down with the hyper-stan behavior I'll gladly discuss this with you in a civil manner :)

What baffles me is not whether Jennifer ( or Beyonce) lipsynch.I'd say that Jennifer does so during this performance is hardly a question btw. What baffles me is that people go around claiming they are such amazing dancers. ;)

It's impossible to discuss with someone full of hatress like you, you're also extremely vulgar and impolite... therefore, you can't discuss with anyone. The words you use, like ass and anus show how uneducated you are and still you try to talk about "civil manners". I feel really sorry for you, because the only way you can proof your statements is using nasty words.

Don't get me wrong i adore Britney, was at circus 2009. Just feel if Jennifer is still bringing it at 42 she has no excuse Beyonce is 30 and still owns the stage. Britney was quoted recently saying she has nothing to prove I really thought was disrespectful to her fans she is still supported to this day and defended by her fans who hope and pray her fire, fierceness and hunger will return and with that statement I felt she has given up on herself.

I am tempted to say you must not have seen many professional dancers? ;D All these divas do a lot of what I would call strutting more than any dancing. Now I don't think , even given the same amount of time rehearsing, I could do what they do.But I have seen enough dancers to feel able to say, when it comes to the dancing skills of these divas..Meh, it's sufficient but not "great" dancing

Uneducated? LMAO I'm graduating this year at 16 with a 4.0 GPA and am on the road to being an anesthesiologist. I'm most likely miles above you in intellectually. You call me uneducated yet your spelling and proper use of punctuation just isn't there at all. And extremely vulgar? Hmm no, only one phrase in my post could be deemed vulgar. Also, anus my dear is not a vulgar term, it's the appropriate term for the opening in the rectum and is used everyday in the medical field. I guess the medical field is full of vulgar idiots eh? If you truly thought/think that word is a vulgar term I'd suggest you hit the books. And no I don't need "nasty words" to prove my statements, like I said I can easily provide you a list of what Beyonce has lipped throughout her career. And once again I feel the need to reiterate that only half of one sentence in my previous post (out of several sentences) is "nasty". However seeing as your next reply to this is probably going to be pointless, you'll most likely pick one sentence out of this and then go on it (as you did with this comment), ignoring the meat of what i'm trying to say and just call me a raging hater, I'm going to drop this conversation as I I'm sure Diva Devotee doesn't appreciate arguments of this nature on her site.

It's impossible to discuss with someone who like to twist things as he please. Yes, indeed "anus" is a word used in a medical context... but that's the whole point THIS IS NOT a medical context. So, according to your twisted affirmation if I call you "fetus face" that will be OK, just because "fetus" is a word used in medice? Oh, you are really messed up. Is the context in which we use the word what really determines its quality. If I say "your mother likes to drink urine", that would be vulgar; yet none of the words are vulgars per se. Again, I think you have to see a doctor. If someone has enough hatred to keep a list like yours (a list of the times you said Beyoncé lipsynced) then you are the one who is clearly obssesed. If I don't like an artist I just don't care. I don't go straight to Youtube to watch hundreds of videos in order to find lipsynced performances. That's just... sad. You are a sad person, whose life is so empty that has a pathological need to always be right. A sad person whose hatred towards someone that you didn't even know is big enough to make you spent hours looking for videos your to proof your statements. If you want so bad to be right, that's OK. You're 100% right. Beyoncé lipsyncs every performance, she doesn't dance at all and is ugly. Is that what you need to be happy? If that's so, then you'll be really happy now and maybe, just maybe, you will release a little bit of all that pain and hatred of your soul.P.S.: I don't care about your degrees, since knowledge and study is not the same than education. Also for you to know, english is not my first language... but a couple of grammar mistakes don't make any of my stataments less important or valid.

Off the top of my head I can remember that the B5's in "I Care" have all been lipped so far. She lipped a C6 in "Emotions" back during Destiny's Child's days (but she was sick, but she could have let kelly rowland do the part as they did in rotterdam when she was sick as well) but that's all I can remember off the top of my head, I have a friend on youtube though who is a fan of Beyonce who keeps a list of what she has lipped and I'll gladly consult him and post the list later.

And as to the MTV performance, that's iffy. Most of it matches up perfectly to another performance done in Roseland except one word (my friend sent me the two performances played over each other a while back and asked me my opinion on it as he really wanted to know if MTV was lipped or not). So there's a chance it's a mix of live and pre-recorded.

The last part of this made my day, not going to lie lol. And my youtube channel is "hessounusual95" I'd post a link but if you go onto the Annie Lennox, Bjork or Lana Del Rey profiles on here you can just click the "watch on youtube" button it will take you to the videos which were done by me :)

Diva I'd like to apologize for the mini argument that came from my statement earlier, I had no idea it was going to happen like that. I figured I'd make the statement, they'd ask for examples, I'd provide them and it would be done and over with haha. I'm guessing it must be annoying to see arguments of that nature (I see them all over youtube, and personally can't stand when they get on my channel. I can't begin to imagine how those feelings would be if this happened on a website of mine) on your site. In the future I'll do my best not to engage in arguments like the one below. However I shall be all over healthy debates :D

I've seen plenty of professional dancers, yes. I stand by my opinion; I think Beyonce has done some wonderful dancing. Just because they're not as good as Micheal Jackson doesn't mean they're not good. Seriously, that logic makes no sense.

You're right. Beyoncé dances less because she has to keep balance with her singing (99% of times live ¬¬) but when she dances she does an amazing work. She has such an energy and her movements feel more natural than other choreographed steps most performances do. You can watch her performance of Ring the Alarm at the end, of her dancing to Deja Vu (live and in the video); also Sweet Dreams and Run the World are good examples of what I mean. Dancing that comes from her soul and heart.

It sure does make sense, that's how it works. If one person is good at something and another is not as good as that first person, that second person is less good.;D Anyway, what I said was they are not "great dancers". Certainly if we consider that compared to most professional singers, these are very good singers and their dancing compared to professional dancers are not the even on par, no way can we claim they are all that multi talented. I really don't believe their dancing is beyond the skill you can see at least a couple of random people in any random dancing do any Saturday night.

"More Natural" ? Those background dancers must have some supernatural instincts, the way they all keep doing the same thing B does at the same time during that Deja Vu live performance. But hey, nice how her choreographer worked in those Tina Turner moves but for my money, Tina does them "more natural". ;)

You are constantly comparing today's popstars with people from the past. Not everyone is going to be a Kate Bush or a Michael Jackson, and if you constantly compare everyone to those people, you're never going to be happy. Compare Jennifer to Jennifer and no one else.

Hey Diva, decent quality videos from The Born This Way Ball are emerging. I think you'll enjoy this, in my opinion, amazing rendition of The Edge of Glory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eal9Tnn2fnk&feature=channel&list=UL

Actually, I am very happy with many a contemporary artist who DOES measure up to favorites from the past. And Michael Jackson's dancing as well could easily stand up against that of earlier than him artists.

Isn't your argument not so much a worry for my happiness as it is an argument for not having standards? And obviously I compare to people of the past. I can hardly compare them to the future people.But I am quite willing to compare them to the present and state that Beyonce and Jennifer are not as good as their background dancers are.

As for comparing Jennifer to Jennifer? Really? By that logic the kid jumping up and down outside my door is a "great artist" because after all, I shouldn't compare her to anybody but her. Like I say, you are arguing for having no standard at all. Which is fine but it sort of makes any claims by fans about any supposed level of achievement or merit by their fave impossible. And it certainly would make a blog like this basically non existent because what are you going to say? There would be nothing to say but "I like ..."

And really not smart to bring up Kate Bush in this discussion because yes, she too was much more of an actual dancer than Jennifer and Beyonce are. ;)

aww, bless you! I only really check the comments if they are @ me or if they appear on the "recent comments" section when I'm looking at the site. If anyone feels like they are being attacked or had a go at then make sure you flag the comment and I'll check it out.

Debate is awesome, fighting is not :D I just took a look at t he comments now and if you're okay with them then thats fine. It did seem to get a little hot, and there was name calling, but I appreciate you trying to take the high ground at one point.

@Nahu I still stand by my opinion that the performance of "Love on top" was lipped. It doesn't take a genius to switch a microphone on and off at the start and the end of the performance. Besides it was a highly choreographed routine so the sound technician would have practised the microphone levels before hand.

Now this is most likely live http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByLJstEo0fo and you can hear how she is finding it hard to manage the keychanges, with some of the notes being slightly off towards the end, and some of the notes are entirely switched for lower notes. However if you watch this phone capture of the performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Mvf62NQhE&feature=plcp even then it looks like shes lipping parts, where voice isn't matching up to the backing. But who knows? Its not really that big a deal to me either way.

Diva: That's the whole point, if there is a sound that comes from a background track you will hear it at a very different volume, quality, and somehow distant (like all the ba, ba, ba). In both you can tell that the volume of the main vocal (Beyoncé voice) was consistent thru all the performance, and matched the same volume and sound that came from when she adressed the audience. The vocals in all of these performances is pretty similar but there are differences. At the VMAs when she sings "You're the one I can always call" around the moment the camera is pointing Katy Perry) if you compare that exact part with the version at Roseland you should hear a difference. The same happens with one "I see" later, she does a melisma at the VMAs that is different from the shorter that she does at Roseland. If you listen carefully you will find lots and lots of little differences, from the very beginning: when she sings: "I can feel the sun whenever you're near" at Roseland she didn't sing the word "when".

Besides all, if you happen to know anything about Beyoncé you know that she doesn't need to lipsync, specially when the dancing in this song is not that hard and because she can sing a song like this with ease... That's what make her stand over others mainstream singers. Maybe she sould sing out of tune and forget words on purpose, so people won't think that she lipsyncs only because she does it almost perfect.

I'm sure she can sing it live, but I think what with the key changes and the level and amount of high octave belting that song requires it would make sense for her to lip it. Especially at MTV when she knew this was going to be an iconic moment, that she is going to show her daughter eventually, she wanted everything to be perfect.just check 2.26 here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueLkl7HvTgY&feature=related she clearly messes up but the vocal is still running.

I know she can sing it live if she needed to so It doesn't bother me either way. If it had been someone who was lipping because they couldn't produce studio standard vocal then I would feel differently.

Jennifer Lopez is (or was) a great dancer especially in her prime. She used to be a back-up dancer for tours and not even Beyonce is good enough to be a back-up dancer. She isn't phenomenal but yeah, she doesn't dance well anymore.

I don't think Jennifer Lopez is amazing but really, Beyonce? I'd understand if you compared Jennifer to Britney's dancing in her prime but Beyonce isn't even a talented or skilled dancer. Any woman who can move can strut and booty pop like Beyonce. She doesn't even execute intricate moves. The hardest choregraphy I've probably seen her do is Run The World and even then her dancing was awkward in some parts.

For your she's not a skilled dancer? Wow, you're pretty delusional, or just a hater! She's an amazing dancer, you can tell in choreographies like Ring the Alarm, Deja Vu, Run the World, Get Me Bodied. The fact that her choreographies aren't extremely complex has nothing to do with her skills, but with the choreographers.

"Any woman who can move can strut and booty pop like Beyonce" Worst statement ever! You're crazy... just insane to say something like this. I have to ignore you, because everything you write is wrong. I have no words to express how wrong you are.

Jlo is a good dancer but not as good as everyone says also beyonce is not the best dancer - shes a really good one who can follow choreography but none of these pop singers who dance are ever really as good as their back-up dancers

but its commendable that these pop stars sing and dance simultaneously - takes a lot of effort and not everyone can do it

Britney was a good dancer, but nothing that superb as some people may her look. Her choreography was complex back between 1999-2004, specially in songs like Boom Boom, Me Against the Music, Overprotected (Darkchild Remix) and Lonely. I think that's the point, her choreographer were so damn good (Wade Robson and Brian Friedman) that the managed to make her look like an outstanding dancer, when what she really did was practice hours and hours to learn choreographies. Anyway, I think Brit is (or was, maybe) one of the best in pop music, at the same level of Madonna. But Bey and Janet Jackson I think are in a higher level. It's just a matter of opinion, though.

Seriously dude? You have no issue with suggesting "therapy" for people who disagree with you but are calling someone else "impolite"? And that habit of yours to talk down from your supposed lofty state of "more educated" than whomever is disagreeing with you is not all that polite a manner of conversation either.

The only one who can actually sing live and dance, both things amazingly is Beyoncé. She never lipsyncs even if she doesn't sing some choruses, she never move her lips pretending that she's singing. I think that's honest and JLo should do the same. Move your lips only when you're singing and let your background singers or backing track cover the rest of the song.

NOTE: Blogging is a time-expensive/cash-poor endeavour. That ain't your problem, I know, but it is nice to know my time and effort is worth something to someone. DD.

Recent Posts

Your browser does not support JavaScript!

Divadevotee instagram

Featured posts

NOTE: ABUSIVE comments will be deleted ASAP. Doesn't matter who you are, or what the cause is, they will be deleted. Some may call that censorship, but I've held out on doing it previously, hoping people would moderate their own behavior, and it's only become worse.

This blog isn't about spreading more negativity on the net, it's about discussing Divas- a topic that isn't serious enough for people to go in on each other.